Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your hand. I'm ready, you're ready for the kid music.
Delving deep into the archives of Perth music history, Clezies,
Tragic Music Box, all right, okay, you ready? Yep, Tragic
music Box meet music Box today. From nineteen eighty one.
(00:22):
It was such a fresh faced young thing, just a
little thing, and you haven't changed. Eighty one was the
year English band Madness played a gig at the Perth
Concert Hall after the assembled Skinheads with a couple of
our school agreement. After the assembled Skinheads from London Court, yeah, exactly,
because of London, they were told to remove their bother
boots and line them up in the foyer. How do
(00:44):
you reckon that went down? And of course Madness literally
ensued with the first fifteen rows of the seats absolutely
smash destroyed and the windows kicked in. I knew that
did it happen, but I didn't know it was because
they'd been asked to take off their boots and line
them up. Gentlemen, if you can take your bobber boots
off and line them up in the foyer, has fun,
(01:05):
has a fun fun. I don't know if it was
a lot of fun for the concert hall staff. They
were said to be a shot, and a spokesperson first said,
concert Hall staff said, this has never happened. When Silla
Black or max Bygrave played here in the past on
TV in nineteen eighty one, least, we were watching a
new Aussie drama called A Country Practice, Good Old Wanderon Valley,
(01:28):
The Life of Times of Grizzled Life and Times of
Grizzly Adams from America that was different and American heart
throb Greg Evigan as a truck driver named b J
McKay and his best friend was a chimpanzee. You can't
write this stuff, can you? Well they did. It was
a chimpanzee. His name was Bear and it was BJ
and the Bear cheesy. Oh my god. You know when
(02:03):
you here's something that you haven't heard forty years and
it just feels like it was yesterday. The beer Lord
so bizarre, Okay, cheesy. What was hot in nineteen ninety one, Well,
for some after doing some research, cord Roy shorts, cord
Roy shorts, cord Roy shorts, spell, Cordroy knickerbockers. Yeah, nine,
(02:24):
I never liked Safari se pants or shorts. Make a decision.
Suits were still in me, mentioned Dad Don Dunstan from
South Australia. My dad had Safari suits sitting in with
the shorts, long socks in a range of color. That's
hair and pants were big in nineteen eighty hating them.
Look like you've done something in your pants. Really. In
(02:46):
October of eighty one, a young Australian band, former of
Perth in Excess, went to the next level with their
second album, Underneath the Colors, was produced by Aussie rock
legend Richard Clapton, and the songs were good. You could
(03:10):
tell that we're going to take on the work and
they just there were some signs they had it in
Spade swagger and the song in the Daily News, our
afternoon paper newspaper which you could buy from a kid
in the city who sounded just like that, ready for
the bus right home because you get the bus. I
remember getting on the bustaft to do some work experience
and all you'd see is in the pages of the
(03:31):
back in front page. There were two yeah, the traditions
that yeah, man after newspaper and the kids. Yeah, we'd
be in the street game daily news paper and from
the pages of the paper. Premier Sir Charles court I
said on this day, and the average member of State
Parliament wasn't paid enough. At twenty eight thousand dollars a
year one it was a pretty handy wage. Okay, eighty one,
(03:51):
got some rapid fireffacts for you. In nineteen eighty one,
Trevor Chappel bold under arm. Blame his brother Greg. That
was a moment. In nineteen eighty one, Robert Redford was
the hot man in Hollywood. Yeah. In nineteen eighty one,
a median house price in Mount Lawley fifty four thousand
bucks stop. In nineteen eighty one, Smiley Pasco was nine.
How cute is that? Guess what he was doing? Smiley?
(04:12):
You're telling you how Christmas? Course and excited about Santa.
To wrap today's sticky beak in the box lease, we
feature an album called Dare by English synth pop band
The Humanly, one of the greatest albums of the early eighties.
Despite being the band's third album, was the first with
the new lineup led by frontman Philip Pokey and with
a more commercial sound in mind. Okie recruited a pair
(04:34):
of high school students, Joe Anne Castrol and Susan Saley's
background singers, and it just took off, joining the wave
of UK bands who were experimenting with synthesizers like Ultravox,
depeche Mode and spanned out Ballet and this new technology
hop humanly hit the sweet spot with the album there
it did. The first single, Love Action, went to number
three in the UK chart, number twelve here in Australia,
(04:54):
and we've fell in love with them and that album yeah,
the album right, I had the album just about wore
it out with the white cart We're in the close
up fighter yep. Only months later the flood goes Open
with a single called Don't You Want Me, raced to
number one in the UK and the US and they
were off, off and racing. It was the biggest selling
UK single of eighty one and the coveted Christmas number one.
And of course there's more to Dere than the two
(05:15):
monster hits. The third single open Your Heart, the menacing
song seconds and they're pretty much ignored. First single the
Sound of the Crowd, and there was an instrumental called
get Carter which was great to start up. Track two
or side to all Help Dare sell over six million
copies worldwide, and Philip Oki is still touring with his modern,
updated version I think one of the girls is still
(05:35):
in the band. For human Aka and his voice, it's
the same. I saw him a couple of years ago.
Very good The Tragic Music Box from nineteen eighty one
on ninety six a FM